RHOME

RHOME

Photo by Antonio Barrella

RHOME

The home of the future. This isn't one of those high-end, archistar, impractical, testing-the-limits, bordering-on-bad-taste things. In this particular case, ambition was the cause but also the effect, both in terms of recognition and from a practical point of view: the Rhome team won the Paris Solar Decathlon Europe 2014 with their idea for a “passive house.” Not a theoretical passive house, but one built in a specific place - the working class Tor Sapienza district, which recently made the papers in Italy.

What is a passive house? It's a building where technologies combine to reduce costs, consumption and waste, and whose energy flows, climatic conditions and systems and building materials are all designed to reduce environmental impact to zero.

You want an example? In the prototype for Rhome there is a mobile solar power tent and the parapets are photovoltaic panels capable of heating 300 litres of water. But how much would a house like that cost? Between €1,000 and €1,400 per square meter, including furniture. Construction time? Ninety days, including the foundations. And the most impressive thing about it is the energy consumption: Rhome produces 4,500 kWh a year, while only consuming 1,300.

The most important elements of Rhome are, yes, Rome and Home, but above all the letter R. R as in Relations between people, Rapidity of movement, Reduction of waste, Reuse of materials and Regeneration. All with an eye to the Smart City, with liveability and attention to context. And you should see the faces of the young people working on the project - more than two hundred eyes looking towards the future. A future that is green, welcoming and beautiful to look at. A future that they don't want to see taken away from them.